This is the first of a series of articles which will be posted in the run-up to ‘FSC Friday’ (September 25th), with which FSC-Watch aims to highlight some of the on-going problems with FSC certifications.

WWF has finalised its forced retreat from supporting one of South America’s most notorious logging companies, and now says it believes that the Guyana-based Barama would not be able to regain the FSC certificate that was ‘suspended’ in 2007.

Back in December 2006, we reported on the curious announcement by German multinational timber company, Danzer, about its intention to ‘cooperate’ with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in order to get its massive Congolese logging operations FSC certified. Less than two years ago, Per Rosenberg, Director of WWF’s Global Forest and Trade Network gushingly proclaimed that “We believe that the cooperation between WWF and Danzer represents an important shift towards responsible forestry for some of the world’s most threatened forests in the Congo Basin. WWF looks forward to working with Danzer to realize their commitment”.

The most recent report of the official Independent Forest Monitor in Nicaragua, the London-based NGO Global Witness, has once again called into question the ability of FSC’s accredited certifiers to detect illegalities in certified forestry operations. The December 2007 report notes that “The Monitor was not able to detect a significantly different level of legal compliance between certified and uncertified forest”.

A few weeks ago, FSC-Watch reported that the Swedish Society for Nature conservation (SSNC) had made a formal complaint to FSC about SCA’s logging operations in Northern Sweden. We’ve also raised concerns about WWF’s close relationships with logging companies.

At the start of this year, FSC-Watch reported on the ‘suspension’ of the FSC certificate of Malaysian-owned Guyanese logging company, Barama. A statement issued today by the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, who accuses Barama of “fraud”, will come as a further embarrassment to supporters of the certificate.

Last week, an interesting article appeared in the Swiss newspaper, the Tagesanzeiger. FC Zurich has just opened a new stadium, called the Letzigrund. The city promised an ecological stadium, but the wood used is not FSC certified. WWF claims that without an FSC certificate, there is no guarantee that the wood doesn’t come from destructive operations (“Raubbau” in German).

Following queries from FSC-Watch, WWF International has asked us to ‘correct’ the article weposted a few days ago concerning the scandalous certification of Forestal Venao, Peru. In fact, WWF’s helpful clarification of its role does not require us to ‘correct’ the article, but we are anyway happy to include the WWF response below in full.